From the outside, the development of the Terre de la Reunion, located in the Laurentians, Quebec, Canada, seem magical. In 2010, my friend Serge Bolduc and I managed, with only $15,000 in our pockets, to create an ecovillage comprising 60 acres of shared mountain forest, 12 housing lots (with 8 houses built or under construction), and a common pavilion to be built. It took a lot of magic, because all this has raised its share of questions, reassessments and repositioning throughout the journey. … Read more
North America
Our Annual Report 2018 is here! How the Global Ecovillage Network is responding to the state of Climate Emergency
We are proud to release the Global Ecovillage Network Annual Report 2018. Our staff, partners, and members are diverse, creative, and driven by passion and commitment. We strive to ensure our projects and programmes are engaging, impactful, and contextually relevant. When we reflect back on our accomplishments of 2018, we hope to ignite these qualities in our readers as well. Our annual report provides metrics, as we measure and track our progress and set new targets for the coming year. It … Read more
Intentional Communities Movement has a New Brand! The Foundation for Intentional Communities has a new identity―including a new brand, name, logo, and website.
The Fellowship for Intentional Community is now the Foundation for Intentional Community. “FIC” shorthand remains. FIC is part of GEN North America (GENNA) Alliance, which is a collaborative platform serving the regenerative communities network within North America. New name, new brand, new look, new everything! For over 30 years, the FIC has served as a platform for intentional communities to connect with each other and as a hub for people to discover community for the first time. The brand … Read more
Webinar: Privilege and Inequality in Ecovillages A Global Perspective Towards a New Story
May 2019 Global Ecovillage Network monthly webinar was hosted by NextGEN. Privilege and Inequality in Ecovillages: A Global Perspective Towards a New Story Ecovillages are integral to creating the beautiful world we know is possible. However, some of the same social patterns of inequality also appear within ecovillages. A global array of speakers will share how the inequality has impacted their communities, and we also invite you, the participants, to share your experience and insight. … Read more
Welcome GEN’s new President and Vice President
Welcome GEN's new President Jennifer Trujillo, and Vice President Cynthia Tina. Jennifer Trujillo, from Colombia, is GEN’s new President. Jennifer is a consultant in organisational planning and networking, skilled in hosting the transformation of social movements towards participatory leadership and comes from Colombia. She brings to her new role a high level of enthusiasm, intelligence and skill - and we can already taste the breeze of change she will be bringing to GEN. Cynthia … Read more
Global Ecovillage Network elects new Board of Trustees Open letter from GEN's Executive Director welcoming the recently elected Board
Dear friends, colleagues and ecovillage lovers, It is with one laughing and one sad eye that I share some exciting news with you: Nearly 4 years have passed since the last big transition in GEN Board leadership in 2015, at the GEN+20 Summit in Findhorn. And now that time has come again. Daniel Greenberg has done a fabulous job over this timespan to steer the ship of GEN, as President of GEN, with a light but decisive touch, and with much love and generosity. His preparation and … Read more
GEN Advocacy at the HLPF: Review and Next Steps
GEN spent the last two weeks in New York at the UN’s annual High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development, held under the theme “Transformation towards sustainable and resilient societies.” It focused on reviewing Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) on water (Goal 6), energy (Goal 7), cities (Goal 11), consumption (Goal 12), forests (Goal 15), and partnerships/means of implementation (Goal 17). GEN’s Delegation joined the Forum to share the ways in which ecovillages and … Read more
Internship Opportunity with GENNA
2018 Internship Program In a nutshell: GENNA is seeking three passionate individuals to work as an Administrative Team (aka Synergy Team) from August to December 2018 to support the development of key initiatives within the sustainable communities movement in North America. The expected number of hours per week is 15 hours. We are searching for candidates with a desire to learn more about sustainable living and community! Why is this role important for GENNA? Our internship program … Read more
Report from Talanoa Dialogue #GENTalanoa: Addressing climate change through empowered communities pursuing their own pathways of development
Yvette Dzakpasu, GEN Advocacy Director, attended the Talanoa Dialogue on behalf of the GEN Advocacy Working Group, which also includes Executive Director Kosha Joubert and Main UN Representative Rob Wheeler. Yvette filed this report for the event: The Talanoa Dialogue took place in Bonn, Germany on 6 May 2018, bringing the traditional Fijian storytelling tool to the UN Climate Change policy process. As described by the UN, “the purpose of Talanoa is to share stories, build empathy and to … Read more
Memory, Fire and Hope Five Lessons from Standing Rock
The North Dakota camp may have been evicted but the movement hasn’t lost. Here are five lessons activists around the world can learn from the water protectors. "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." —Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting On February 22, 2017, water protectors at the Oceti Sakowin camp, the primary camp of Standing Rock, were evicted by the Army Corps of Engineers in a military style takeover. A peaceful resistance … Read more
